


The Concept of Jealousy

by keire_ke



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bruce Is a Good Bro, M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 12:31:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5585461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve was not a jealous man. He wasn't! He may have a host of flaws, but jealousy was not one of them. He wore a heavy mantle of righteousness and it was his intention to maintain it at all cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Concept of Jealousy

**Author's Note:**

> A belated [Stucky Secret Santa](http://stuckysecretsanta.tumblr.com/) gift for stevie-quivive. I hope you enjoy this, darling!

**** Steve was not a jealous man. He was not! He'd had experience with envy, of course, but envy was obvious. He'd grown up ill, obscure, shunned; naturally he'd wanted health, recognition, glory. Jealousy though? There had hardly been anything in his life worth the effort of acquiring, let alone keeping. What little he'd actually had he'd was always willing to give away, although as it happened the world in general had had no interested in attitude, which had been the only thing Steve'd had in supply back when. The world may have run itself by supply and demand, but Steve's wealth lay in his ability to take a minor infraction as a personal insult and react accordingly, and it had not been a currency worth accumulating.

If you'd asked Bucky at any time before 1943, it'd been a currency best dropped down a convenient fountain, as the only thing it'd bought was bruises. He'd voiced the thought one cold December evening, as he'd patiently picked gravel out of Steve's thigh, and to his credit Steve'd taken it under advisement and hadn't gotten into another fight that week. Then little Billy O'Connor (six feet one inch tall, fourteen stone of pure Irish brawn) had started harassing Steve for his predilection for art over boxing, and well. Even Bucky'd understood that one, eventually, and Bucky had not been a well of understanding when it came to Steve's fights. More of a basin. Shallow, limited basin of understanding.

After, when Captain America had started to supplant Steve Rogers, Steve had learned jealousy. The twenty-first century was most illuminating. Steve Rogers was worth hoarding, what little of him there was, but other things as well. Time was one of them: with nothing meaningful to spend it on, the minutes were slipping through his fingers, worthless. Affection was another. At no time was either of those more apparent than when he went to visit Peggy in her nursing home. It was a wonderful feeling, to see her light up at the sight of him, to have her swaying in his arms while his shiny new phone filled the room with gentle music.

Those moment where precious, and he would keep them until his dying day.

He could have had all of that and more, and this was when Steve learned jealousy was an old friend. Because even though he would have never begrudged Peggy her life, her accomplishments, he resented them, too. He resented the world for giving her all of that, and not him, not them. The time he had with Peggy was precious, but it wasn’t his, not entirely. It would never be his, but for those few hours when Peggy was lucid, when she didn’t belong to her family, but to him, but those moments were fleeting and inevitably over all too soon, and Steve was angry. Livid even!

Bruce assured him this was normal. Anger was part of a healthy response to grief, he'd said. I'm not that kind of doctor, Steve, I read it on Wikipedia, he'd said. Try to engage with the world while you… process, he'd said. I'm really not qualified to give you any kind of advice, the last time I got emotional I woke up naked in a cozy nest of ten thousand broken bricks, he'd said. Really, google it for yourself, it's my professional opinion as a doctor of physics, Steve.

Steve had nodded thoughtfully and thanked him for the advice. indeed. Google had proven to be most helpful, and by the time he’d learned that his entire life had been basically pointless, he was well-acquainted with the concept of jealousy. Yet since all his precious things were locked up in his head, he had it well in hand. He was Captain America. He had a carefully modulated set of responses, and the baser instincts were relegated to the strictly policed corner of his mind.

"Steve," Sam said quietly.

"Hm?"

"You are cracking the glass."

Steve looked down, at the fancy crystal tumbler half-filled with whiskey. There was a snow-white crack in the base, where he'd been gripping it.

"I'm not going to tell you how to live your life," Sam started, "but…"

"Anything you say before 'but' is automatically invalid."

"This century is ruining you, man."

"Not really.” Steve shrugged, gaze fixed in the distance, amidst the couples on the dancefloor. “Ask Bucky, he'd tell you I was a complete shit back when, too."

"Ah," Sam said.

"What do you mean?"

"I said nothing."

"You made a sound."

"Yeah, so?"

"Sounds mean things."

"Not that one."

"Sam…"

"Oh really? That's how it's going to be?"

"I don't see how you expect to maintain a conversation if you don't mean what comes out of your mouth."

"Room full of politicians, and you accuse me of spewing hot air. Amazing." Sam lifted his glass to his lips and took a long sip. "You know, there's this thing called 'cutting in', maybe you've heard of it."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean." Steve had an idea. He had an idea very much.

"He's a good dancer."

"I'm sure he is."

"Even if you're as hopeless as you say, maybe you'd work something out."

"Maybe."

Sam shook his head and drained his glass, which was just as well, as Bucky was coming their way, his dancing partner temporarily lost in the throng of other dancers, to Steve’s profound, if ill-advised, relief. He was Captain America. Jealousy did not become him. He absolutely had not growled at the poor fellow earlier in the evening, when he first approach Bucky with the intention of whisking him away.

"You look like you're having fun," Sam told Bucky, waving at a passing waiter.

"I like dancing," Bucky said, and Steve marveled. Three whole words, offered up with the barest of prompts, in public!

"It shows."

And Bucky smiled. He was flushed, his eyes shone and he smiled, and the glass in Steve's hand almost exploded. He set it aside, even though he was perfectly calm.

Steve began the evening grateful that Natasha had urgent matters to attend to in some remote corner of the globe, and therefore needed to be elsewhere, but as it turned out the gratitude was not well founded, as she had been spending more time with Sam than was strictly necessary. Steve could tell, because Sam was giving him a distinctively Black-Widow look over Bucky's shoulder: one-part amused and one-part knowing, topped off with smug, shaken vigorously and poured over into an ice-cold glass.

"So, Bucky," Sam started saying, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. "Maybe it's time to put those dancing skills to service, get the good Captain here to stretch his legs?"

"Steve doesn't dance."

"I'm sure he could be tempted."

Bucky snorted – snorted! – at that, but wistfully, softly, just under his breath, amping up the swagger of old, yet concealing none of the fragile softness which had only began to emerge from the iron cocoon of the Winter Soldier. He didn't look at Steve when he smiled at Sam – he smiled at Sam – and said, "I like dancing, doesn't matter to me much who's it with, so long as they're good, and Steve didn't have nearly enough practice for want of a partner, 's all."

Then he was gone, whisked away by the Errol Flynn look-alike he'd been dancing with previously. Steve might have been a little envious of that.

"Ah," Sam said.

"Is this another of those sounds that don't mean anything, or did you want to say something this time?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"Are you ready to hear something harsh?"

"Last time I heard such a thing implied, I was informed the organization I’d died to end was doing just fine, so good luck topping that."

"Bucky's pining for you, but he's not gonna say a word, because he thinks you're still waiting for Peggy."

Sam topped it.

"That's insane," Steve managed weakly.

"Not that insane."

"How is that not insane? Peggy—died. Peggy is dead. She's not coming back."

"Who knows anything in this world, anymore, really." Sam shrugged and held his glass up into the light. "Barnes died, but not really, Captain America died, but not really, Skullcrusher or whatever his name was got hit with an exploding building in the face and came back swinging. I heard Stark talk about Miss Potts falling three hundred feet and hurling fireballs later on, Thor carries his brother's funeral coin with him, allegedly to shove down his throat with when he inevitably turns up again – his words, not mine. Fury managed to somehow survive the Winter Soldier's attention, let's not even get into what I'm hearing on the subject of Coulson, because I know how much you like that."

Steve felt his fingers clench. "This is not funny, Sam."

"I'm saying your boy is still suspicious of chocolate, following the USB stick incident, and he's surrounded by people who like to wave to death as he – or she – cycles past. Can you blame him?"

"Peggy was ninety-four. She died of Alzheimer's disease."

"That's not…" Sam took a deep breath. "He doesn't really think she's coming back. He's worried you're going to follow her."

"I'm not actually suicidal, I know my limits."

"Steve," Sam said, endlessly patient and with the inherent serene kindness only available to the professionally calm, "you are not listening to me."

"You're not allowed to be my therapist. Fury's orders."

"I am going to assume JARVIS recorded what you just said, in case I'm Fury's Secret Santa." Sam sighed, deeply, and with a casual flick of his wrist sent his glass skidding down the bar, into the bartender's open palm. "Your ability to comprehend a metaphor is as nonexistent as your self-preservation instinct. I'm saying, Steve, that he is not in a place where taking action based on his own judgement calls about other people's feelings is an option. You want to stand in the corner and gnash your teeth at everyone who gives him time of day, that's fine. But don't expect him to figure out that the reason you're doing that is because you want to kill the actor he's dancing with and throw him out the window for touching your boy."

"Bucky's not stupid."

"No, but Bucky spent six hours last week slowly descending into a pit of self-made terror, because Tony threw a couple screwdrivers at a wall and raised his voice when Bucky went to pick them up."

"Tony shouldn't have done that!"

"No, but he did, because Tony is a reasonably healthy human being who loses his temper sometimes and reacts in physical ways, while Bucky is a unique case in the history of psychological research. Honestly, if I weren't personally invested, I would be calling all the publishers right now, offering them my potential doctoral thesis."

"How is the doctorate going, by the way?"

"It's good, thank you, I’ve all the consent forms signed.” Sam straightened up and grinned. Mentioning his thesis tended to garner that reaction. “Don't change the subject. Bucky is having enormous trouble processing the finicky details of the very reasonable spectrum of human emotion. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

And somehow Steve did see. Somehow, he got that what Sam was waffling on about was a variation of the crisp, icy "tell him" that had been Natasha's parting gift.

"What if he doesn't feel the same?" he asked softly.

"On the off chance everyone, Natasha included, managed to completely and willfully misinterpreted the giant obvious neon hearts that light up in his eyes every time he looks at you, the worst that can happen is he'll say he loves you, but you just don't do it for him."

"But—"

"Oh for fuck's sake."

"But if he won't say no, if he can't say no!"

"Then he's going to make the blank face and you will know, and you will send him to talk to someone, for God's sake, Steve. He's not a child, he understands hyperbolic discounting and how it applies to human interaction."

"What?"

"It's a term in economics, ask him sometime, he can explain it better than me. It's vaguely relevant, and anyway, my word of the day calendar was getting pushy."

"What if he's not ready?"

Sam gave him a look, the sort that Steve could swear he lifted directly from Bucky. "Not to be mean or anything, but are you so busy you can't wait?"

Sam was really annoying when he made his excellent points.

"Steve," Sam added softly. "What makes you happy?"

"Bucky," Steve said without a thought. Even if he was fucked up beyond all measure, Bucky’s mere presence soothed the aches in Steve’s soul, lit up candles and fetched sweet-smelling buttered bread rolls.

"See, it's literally that easy. Scarily co-dependent, but easy."

"I really can't dance."

"No offence, but I have seen you flirt. It is pathetic and glaring. You can hardly do worse."

"Thanks, Sam."

"Anytime." Sam lifted a fresh glass in greeting. "Go get him, tiger."

And Steve gathered about him his fabled courage and went, ducking between the dancing couples. It was a little like being shot at, he reasoned. You just had to step away when the other guy swiped at you, or shot at you, and you were good. Dancing was as simple as that. Had to be. Stark managed just fine, and he wasn’t that gifted in terms of physical activity, so it stood to reason it wouldn’t be beyond Steve’s capabilities, right?

Bucky made it seem so easy. Steve paused in the middle of the dancefloor, just short of the reach of the spinning duo and watched. He wasn't the only one, either, which is probably why he got away with it for as long as he had.

"Steve," Bucky said, coming to a stop so thoroughly in tune with the music it seemed like an integral part of the dance.

"I—" Steve started and looked away, then back up. "I was wondering if I may cut in. I mean, if it's okay with you. Both of you! I'd like to dance." Oh good god above, this was a terrible, terrible idea. "With you," he concluded, looking straight at Bucky.

The guy who could almost be Errol Flynn, close enough that Steve had an actual crisis of conscience, because Errol Flynn, disappeared into the crowd. Steve felt very bad about it – he wasn’t even glaring this time! – he could be dancing with an Errol Flynn look-alike. Or Bucky. He could also be dancing with Bucky. Hopefully would be dancing with Bucky.

Hopefully maybe, because Bucky stood perfectly still in the middle of the dancefloor, wide eyes fixed on Steve, turning redder with every passing second.

"Bucky," Steve said.

"I thought you didn't dance," Bucky said to his fine Italian hand-made dancing shoes (Tony Stark's Word Choice, Autumn Collection), pinching the leg of his gunmetal grey suit (Tony Stark's Word Choice, Winter Collection. Bucky owned a lot of fancy clothes from that particular fashion house).

"I was… waiting. For the right partner." And another point for Human Disaster Steve Rogers.

"I hear you're terrible at dancing." Bucky stepped in, laid a hand on Steve's shoulder. "I like dancing with people who know what they are doing."

"I can learn."

"I'm not holding my breath."

"I learned how to throw the shield fairly fast."

"I'm not as aerodynamic as a metal disc."

"I dunno, I don't think you'd be that hard to toss."

Bucky choked on a guff of laughter. "Are you calling me easy?"

"Depends on how the night goes," Steve said, blinded by bravado, and also, it had to be said, by the weight of the metal hand in his palm.

"You're such a punk," slipped from Bucky's mouth, permeated by pure, unadulterated affection to such a degree that even Steve, famed for his rock-like courting abilities, could feel the warmth.

"Jerk," Steve said, and pulled Bucky closer, hand against his back, his nose level with Bucky's ear, the perfect spot to confirm that the it-cologne of the season was Apology by Tony Stark's Big Mouth: cedar wood, spice and rose petals.

Later, but not too much later, he would be kissing Bucky, safely hidden away by several biometric locks, and it would be, well, easy. It would also be mostly hilarious and a little messy, but never, not for one moment, awkward. Coming home could never be awkward, after all. Now, he relaxed just enough to mold his body to Bucky's excellent posture, and let himself be guided through a sedate waltz.

If perhaps he glared over Bucky's shoulder at anyone who dared to come too close, that was only to be expected. Steve was a quick study, and jealousy was not a hard lesson to learn, not when he had his dancing partner to guard.

THE END


End file.
